


roots to the skies

by jelly_spine



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: M/M, Romance, donghyuck is just really in love, sappy af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 18:10:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8023900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jelly_spine/pseuds/jelly_spine
Summary: Donghyuck falls in love on the tile wall separating his and Mark's homes' yards.





	roots to the skies

**Author's Note:**

> since school started my writing pace has been as slow as a snail, i apologize for that  
> we'll see if i can finish another one of my unfinished stories before the next summer lol  
> oh and btw the whole tree thing is just figurative, in case you were wondering

Mark inhaled, his chest expanding and his ribs making way as his lungs filled with air. Donghyuck could imagine the veins in his lungs, like two trees; their roots up to the skies that were Mark’s eyes, their branches down towards the solidity of his hips and thighs—just as upside down as Donghyuck’s feelings had turned in the span of two seconds.

"I hate mosquitoes. They pestered me all the time last night,” Mark said and scratched at his arm, the skin around the bite getting red like the tips of Donghyuck's ears.

The morning was pale but noisy. Birds chirruped amongst the flowers of Donghyuck’s aunt’s small plum tree, their fluttering wings and pointy beaks curtained by the pink petals. The two boys sat on the wall separating their homes’ stamp-size gardens, thigh to thigh and shoulder to shoulder.

"There was a constant noise--you know, the one they make with their wings--right next to my ear when I tried to sleep."

Mark made a high-pitched noise with his mouth, his hand by his ear imitating the insect in question. Donghyuck looked at his index finger and thumb, pressed together, and dreamed up small birds singing in their little nest carved into the trunk of one of the trees inside Mark.

Mark waved his hand in front of Donghyuck’s face, an amused smile on his lips. “Hello to the moon. The earth is calling.” Donghyuck leaned away a bit. Mark laughed and set his hand back into his lap, inquiring, “Am I going to have to continue talking by myself?”

“No.” Donghyuck realised his voice sounded a bit like a snapping branch, and softened it, his lips going rounder. “No, you won’t.”

Mark smiled, nose scrunching up, a peculiar look in his eyes. Donghyuck’s chest prickled and throbbed with a terrible ache; never had he really thought of Mark as _breath-taking_ , but, the moment Mark had inhaled after he had heaved himself up onto the red tile wall, Donghyuck had simply thought, _‘Oh, no.’_

Donghyuck looked at the almost-adult lines of Mark’s shoulders, moving under his blue check shirt buttoned to the apple; the older of the two boys brought a hand up to his forehead and ran it from there, through his hair, to the back of his neck.  

“I haven’t been bitten once this year,” Donghyuck said.

Mark shrugged. The forest in his body rustled. “Maybe I taste better.”

Donghyuck hardly doubted that, thoughts of kissing the other boy popping up in his mind like bottle mail which had finally reached his shore. “Nah, I don’t think so.”

Mark shoved at Donghyuck’s shoulder in a half-serious manner, the corners of his mouth dropping, but the spark in his eyes staying intact. Donghyuck laughed and hopped down from the wall, sprinting towards his home; Mark caught up to him and tackled him onto the grass, where they rolled and laughed, grass stains on their clothes and dew drops on their skins.

 

 

 

 

The sky was dark. The birds slept on both Donghyuck’s aunt’s plum tree’s branches, and in Mark’s throat. The two boys lay on the ground in Mark’s family’s garden. The dry grass tickled at the little curves of Donghyuck’s body which rose off the ground; the back of his neck, the small of his back, the backs of his wrists, the backs of his knees and his ankles were all stabbed by the thin green blades.

Suddenly tears, like stars fallen from the sky, were at the corners of Mark’s eyes. Donghyuck, whose gaze hadn’t ceased drifting to Mark whenever it could since the morning, was lost. “What is it?”

Mark looked at Donghyuck, shook his head. Salted water would kill a plant, and Donghyuck’s fingers twitched with the urge to wipe away the tears clinging to the other boy’s eyelashes. He opened his arms, and when Mark scooted closer their trees’ leaves started rustling in the same rhythm.

They held each other for an hour without a word, Donghyuck’s curling at the base of the other’s neck, and Mark’s arms loosely around his waist, the night’s darkness heavy and rich.

“I read this book,” Mark started, but didn’t finish.

Donghyuck snorted. “Is this what you were crying about? I let my arm die just because you read a sad book?”

Mark sniffled with a smile. “Yeah, I guess you did.”

Donghyuck felt an unexplainable feeling of fondness welling up in his chest for the boy who rolled away and sat up, grinning down at him. Mark’s chuckles were quiet and breathy, and Donghyuck’s heart beat so hard the other boy could have felt it if he pressed his fingers to Donghyuck’s temple.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A mosquito buzzed somewhere around Donghyuck’s head, and he imagined treasure maps of mosquito bites on Mark’s back. He forgot the insect, imagining the skin of the other boy’s back, dotted with red bumps, and traced lines between the bites, until he reached the treasure hidden between the roots of the trees.

The insect was probably sucking blood out of Donghyuck, but he was too deep in thoughts of the boy with the most endearing of laughs to care.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The two boys took a bus to the public outdoor swimming pool a fifteen-minute ride away.

The surface of the azure blue water rippled and the lines of the tiles under it undulated. The boys padded past the bunch of kids in the shallow end and went a bit deeper, their steps slowed and confronted by the water.

Neither of them was tanned yet, for it was only late spring. Donghyuck saw the treasure map on Mark’s slim back, and looked away when Mark turned around, his fingertips skimming the water’s surface.

“Race me to the end of the pool?” Mark suggested, his chin tilting a bit towards his chest and his eyebrows rising.

Donghyuck threw himself into the water and took Mark by surprise by taking a false start. After a fraction of a second of shock Mark went after, but Donghyuck’s hand touched the tiled wall first.

Mark rose from the water, trees rustling and swaying. Donghyuck’s own chest heaved, but he didn’t see the same kind of clumsy grace in it as he did in the movement of the other boy’s ribcage.

“That was unfair,” Mark grumbled as pearls of water glided over his skin.

Donghyuck shrugged, unapologetic. Mark splashed water into his face as revenge, and he yelped, wading away.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mark picked a flower petal out from between the still slightly damp strands of Donghyuck’s hair; Donghyuck realised just how desperately he ached for his best friend.

But what Donghyuck didn’t realise, as he exhaled a batch of love from his lungs, was that all he had to do for Mark to pine for him, too, was to—there you go.


End file.
